Iron Bars and Bookshelves

Co-authored by Patrick Donovan and Donald Fyson.rnrnIn its own haphazard way, the Morrin Centre, the subject of this loving and highly readable history, is as good a symbol as any institution in Canada of the often fraying but never quite broken ties that bind the nation. Over the past 200 years, the cultural heart of Anglo Quebec City has had its periods of eminence and prosperity, punctuated by longer bouts of poverty and anonymity, before its gorgeous library made an appearance in one of Louise Penny’s bestsellers about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. Now, freshly burnished and with new injections of private and public money, it attracts a steady stream of tourists.